Tag: Opal Lee

Community and local leaders unite to remember Juneteenth with weekend celebrations

DALLAS – May 17, 2018 – PRLog — The 153rd Juneteenth Anniversary Celebration is a culturally diverse experience that impacts a multi-cultural audience. The annual attendance for the Fort Worth events has recorded more than 20,000 including participants, vendors, and spectators over its history. Juneteenth week (June 11-19) activities include a Youth Choir Explosion Workshop, Breakfast of Prayer Service, Miss Juneteenth Pageant, Parade and a 5K Walk/Run. The weekend highlight is the Community Festival at Tarrant County College – South Campus with entertainment by Grammy award-winning songstress Ann Nesby, children’s area, food vendors, the “Empowering You” event and BBQ Cook-Off. The finale event of the celebration is the screening of the Black-ish episode “Juneteenth: The Musical” and community forum.

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with the news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. The historical significance affects not only African Americans in Texas but also the many others who have stood for racial injustice nationally and around the world.

Unity Unlimited, Inc. is a non-profit organization whose main mission is providing educational activities and resources to people, young and old, to foster unity and harmony within the community, the city, the state, the nation and the world regardless of race, culture or denomination. In support of its mission, the non-profit produced Teen Choir Explosion, a free week-long fine arts workshop that encouraged multi-cultural exchange of ideas and exposure to different styles of songs and expression for 10 years. To continue the support of its mission to provide activities that foster and support racial harmony and understanding, Unity Unlimited is proud to work with Mrs. Opal Lee in producing the Annual Fort Worth Juneteenth Community Celebration which seeks to educate people on the importance of commemorating when the last slaves were empowered by the news of enforced freedom granted them by the Emancipation Proclamation albeit two and a half years later.

Juneteenth celebrates the many lives that helped to abolish slavery and acknowledges that a collaborative effort was necessary to help gain freedom and it will take the same to retain it. Unity Unlimited, Inc. seeks to provide meaningful opportunities regardless of the form in which the events may be presented, including but not limited to workshops, expositions, concerts, rallies and lectures to help develop understanding of cultural differences by bringing all backgrounds together working to accomplish a common goal thereby producing knowledgeable and caring citizens.